Gangland: The Rise of the Mexican Drug Cartels from El Paso to Vancouver

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John Wiley & Sons, Dec 2, 2011 - True Crime - 288 pages
A frightening look at Mexico's new power elite—the Mexican drug cartels

The members of Mexico's drug cartels are among the criminal underworld's most ambitious and ruthless entrepreneurs. Supplanting the once dominant Colombian cartels, the Mexican drug cartels are now the major distributor of heroin and cocaine to the U.S. and Canada. Not only have their drugs crossed north of the border, so have the cartels (in 2009, 230 active Mexican drug cartels have been reported in U.S. cities). In Gangland, bestselling author Jerry Langton details their frightening stranglehold on the economy and daily life of Mexico today—and what it portends for the future of Mexico and its neighbours.

Offering a firsthand look from members of law enforcement, politicians, journalists, and people involved in the drug trade in Mexico and Canada, Gangland sheds a harsh light on the multibillion dollar industry that is the drug trade, the territorial wars, and the on-the-street reality for the United States, with the importation of narco-terrorists. With the unstinting realism and keen analysis that have made him an internationally respected journalist, Langton offers the bleak prospects of what a collapsed government in Mexico might lead to—a new Mexican warlord state not unlike Somalia.

  • Details the emergence of the Mexican drug cartels—the transformation of middlemen who ferried drugs from Bolivia and Colombia to the U.S. and Canada into self-styled entrepreneurs
  • Describes how the growth of the cartels led to violent territorial wars—with Felipe Calderon declaring war on the cartels in 2006
  • Offers a frightening look at how much the incursion of the drug cartels has affected American life and business—Wachovia and Bank of America have been found guilty of laundering cartel profits

An unflinching examination of the world's most lucrative—and deadliest—drug cartel, Gangland lets readers explore, with brutal clarity, the newest front on America's latest war.

From inside the book

Contents

Las muertas de Juárez
The Eagle Eats the Snake
A MexicanBorn Emperor
The Rise of the Drug Cartels
Carnage in 2009
The Roll Call of Death
The War Expands
Exporting Drugs and Crime
The Violence Escalates
A Phase of Very Intense Violence
Mexican Cartel Violence Moves North
Notes
Copyright

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About the author (2011)

Jerry Langton is a journalist and the author of several books, including the national bestsellers Fallen Angel: The Unlikely Rise of Walter Stadnick in the Canadian Hells Angels and Biker: Inside the Nefarious World of an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang. Over the past two decades, Langton's work has appeared in The Toronto Star; The Globe & Mail; National Post; Maclean's; The Daily News of New York City; The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.; American Banker and dozens of other publications.

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